Have you ever seen your hero misbehave?

Gayatri Spivak is my hero. I haven’t seen her misbehave but then again I don’t know every bit of her life.

I don’t call them heros, because I’m not 10 anymore, but there are some people I ‘look up’ to. Although I’m not aware of any misbehavior, and I also don’t follow their lives very much like Simone said. If anyone has any dirt on Dawkins, Sagan, the writers and hosts of the Daily Show and the Colbert Report, various civil rights activists, and Bill Maher, let me know lol.

When Deputy Dawg got caught in the hen house….I gave up on hero’s.

I don’t have a hero, but I look up to my father. He’s a wonderful dad and step-dad to his children, but he’s been a crappy husband to my mom at times. I hate how he has hurt my mom, but I’ve learned to separate his life as a father and life as a husband to my mom.

I don’t have a hero. Is that a problem?

Well there was that one time Iron Man had a drinking problem. I was pretty disappointed about that….

Pooh stole the honey pot. I was SO disappointed in him. He deserved to get stuck in the rabbit hole!

I don’t adore any hero. But if I have ones I’ll tolerate them. It’s their life, bad things could happen in everyone’s life, and everyone could have scandal, which is common. I’ll understand as rationally as possible.

@Blackberry: “I don’t call them heros, because I’m not 10 anymore, but there are some people I ‘look up’ to.”

exactly. (Most of those people are on my list as well)

The thing is – these people I admire are people. People do all kinds of stuff that might be considered “out of character”, disappointing, selfish, etc. I don’t think it would have a huge effect on my perception of any of the people I admire.

Too many to mention, but I’ll add Chomsky and Amy Goodman to the list.

Sure. I’ve heard my grandma cuss and seen her pop my grandpa in the back of the head plenty of times.

I can think of three instances when people I admired let their power and image get the better of them.

My first job as a pastry cook was with a very large and well-known French patisserie ruled over by a guy who had become a living legend in the pastry world. My wife and I started working there at about the same time, I in the kitchen and she in the office. I was in awe of this guy based on his reputation…until he started hitting on my wife (he was 80 at the time).

A few years later, I got a job with a guy who had the same stature in the chocolate world (he’s still seen as some kind of chocolate demi-god). I was a bit more cynical about culinary celebrity going into this job, but I still had an illusion of being incredibly lucky to be allowed to learn at the feet of the master…until he groped me.

Many years later, my long-time Zen teacher was caught in violation of commonly accepted standards prohibiting sexual relationships between teachers and students, and having lied to cover it up. It was an isolated instance, as far as anyone knows, but there was still plenty of damage done, and he left of his own accord. I wasn’t involved in the incident, but I was stuck with cleaning up the institutional mess.

What I’ve taken away from all these episodes is a deeper insight into the dynamics of power, especially the kind of power that admiration confers. I don’t think any of these guys were monsters, and they certainly weren’t heroes either. I see that putting anyone on a pedestal does both them and you a great disservice. I would never ever want to viewed as someone “special”.

No but I had a meatball sub get pretty frisky.

Batman? Yes. Yes I have.

I’m pretty sure all my heroes misbehave(d).

Oh I’m absolutely certain that Theodore Roosevelt misbehaved at some point, but that has no bearing on my opinion of him whatsoever.

I like my heroes to openly misbehave. It shows me two distinct facets of their personality that make them “heroes” to me.

1. They’re not really concerned about what other folks think of them.
2. They’re human.

@Blackberry

“If anyone has any dirt on…Bill Maher, let me know lol.”

I think Maher called Sarah Palin the C-word during one of his stand-ups: http://search.mywebsearch.com/mywebsearch/GGmain.jhtml?searchfor=Bill+Maher+calls+Sarah+Palin+C+word&n=77ce79d3&st=kwd

Palin is certainly worthy of strong derision, but he could have used a word that doesn’t, or words that don’t, usually have misogynic implications.

Wow, when didn’t John Lennon misbehave? Jeezy Chreezy, did he ever misbehave.

My hero always misbehaves, but then again I should probably stop looking in the mirror for him.

Conan raped a goddess once. I’m glad I just got familiar with the black and white comics… O_o

@Brian1946 Is it bad that I think that’s not that bad lol? That word only has a stigma because we gave it one.